The Agile City: Building Well-Being and Wealth in an Era of Climate Change

In this enlightening if somewhat dry analysis of climate-conscious land use and development in the U.S., Russell, architecture columnist for Bloomberg News, shows how current policies and lending systems that encourage urban sprawl and car-based transportation are rooted in an old political conflict. The "Jeffersonian reluctance to constrict owners in their use of land" struggles with Alexander Hamilton's view that a centralized state is required in a world of increasing urbanization, "large scale industry... and an international banking system." Citing numerous examples of environmentally innovative, attractively livable development in Canada, the Netherlands, and other countries where planning authorities revive blighted areas and prepare for weather extremes, Russell conveys a frustration with the American impatience with city planning and distrust of government that have resulted in traffic-jammed urban sprawl and high living costs. He laments how innovations such as, in post-Katrina New Orleans, intensive planning sessions including all stakeholders as well as low-energy, hurricane-resistant housing developments founder through political timidity and government's financial neglect. Russell offers numerous solutions and recommends we focus the "kind of design acumen and analytical prowess" regularly invested in biotech and electronics on developing "citymaking models that take into account evolving business needs, residential diversity, and diverse natural systems, too." (June)